Are the glaciers in Glacier National Park growing?

Glacier National Park (GNP) straddles the continental divide along Montana’s border with Canada. Ever since Al Gore’s 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Park has been seen as ground zero in the international battle over manmade global warming. Almost every major figure promoting apocalyptic-manmade-global-warming-by-CO2 hysteria has made a publicized visit to the Park.

Today’s visitors to GNP are met with a steady stream of climate-change messaging. Official Park literature claims that all glaciers in GNP are predicted to melt away by the year 2030. (Some signs even tell visitors that the glaciers may be gone by 2020.)

A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.

The average date of first freeze in East Glacier, Montana is September 13th. It is only then that one can assess whether the glaciers are getting bigger or smaller than in previous years.

In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.

The Grinnell is perhaps the most iconic of two dozen named glaciers in the Park. Untold thousands of people have hiked to it. Millions more have been exposed to government imagery of the Glacier melting away. The nearby Many Glacier Hotel features pictures on its walls showing the Grinnell’s decline from the 1880s to 2008. Numerous blog posts and magazine feature stories have also addressed this theme.

Upon our return to the Hotel after visiting the Glacier, we noticed that our brand-new photos appear to show that the Grinnell Glacier has grown slightly from the 2008 images that are displayed on the Hotel walls. There has been no reporting of this in any newspaper or broadcast that we know of. (In fact, all news coverage reports the precise opposite.) The smaller Gem Glacier—which is visible from the valley miles below—also appears to be slightly larger than it is shown in 2008 pictures on display.

We did not have enough people this year to trek to other glaciers. However we will return to GNP in September 2018 for more critical glacier research.

357 thoughts on “Are the glaciers in Glacier National Park growing?”

Change must be terrifying to the Warmians. So what will they ever do if those and other glaciers start growing again?
There are LOTS of glaciers everywhere. What about those that aren’t popular tourist spots? Are they not worth loving, too?
I’m looking forward to next year’s survey.

All the can take credit for is making promises on how we will behave in the future. It seems all that Mother Earth needed was some false contrition and promises to do better, and voila the climate is saved! Regardless of what we do the earth is going to behave as it will. All the false obeisance’s and snake oil applications will have no effect, but that doesn’t ever stop the soothsayers.

Ironically, if they DID start taking the credit, and started celebrating “our” curbing of emissions and improving (“improving”) climate, it would do more to boost the public’s inclination to support them than all their naysaying.
We humans respond much better to praise than blame (ask any animal trainer or Dale Carnegie graduate!) Celebrate our achievements, and we’ll try harder for still more celebration; scold us and we quickly start to think, Well, there’s no pleasing you so why bother?

There was a subtle change from “global warming” to “climate change.” That covers everything from warming to cooling. So, if the glaciers grow and the winters get colder and longer, they will take credit and blame it on man-made activities. When trillions of dollars are at stake, the Al Gore cult knows how to take their share.

Actually they’ve already done that! I saw a news broadcast claiming that some record low temperatures were due to the effects of global warming, but I can’t remember how they explained it scientifically…

OTOH, if we slip into some serious global cooling, we should scream to the high heavens and blame Gore for it. I would love to see him on the receiving end of some lawsuits for ‘climate damage’, claiming policies he convinced regulators to pursue needlessly caused temperatures to drop. The discovery process would prove priceless.
Yes, that’s garbage, but no more garbage than the lawsuits they have initiated.

It would be an odd process in nature that was absolutely and without exception going in one direction. Spray is thrown off from a waterfall; generally speaking the water is going down, but a little bit of it is going up. In the same spirit, why would we expect that every year, every glacier in Glacier National Park would shrink?
The point is that most of the glaciers are a lot smaller than they were a century ago.
If some day they all disappear, and even all the snowbanks melt, can we warmists then say that this proves our point? Not by the logic of wattsupists. For even then, it might snow some blustering January 3, 2140, and then the articles would appear, breathlessly announcing that the snow pack had increased, contrary to warmist predictions.

“If some day they all disappear, and even all the snowbanks melt, can we warmists then say that this proves our point? Not by the logic of wattsupists.”
The problem is that skeptics are not arguing that the earth has not warmed since the Little Ice Age ended, or that climate change is not happening. We are making the claim that there is no compelling scientific evidence for this. Thus, skepticism is in order. Alarmists have the ability to debunk the skeptic claim if they want. But none of them ever provide any evidence to support for example their claims of very high amounts of positive feedback. High positive feedback is essential for alarmist claims to be correct. Yet, alarmists don’t support such claims with evidence. Only with vitriol, personal attacks and hate.
Likewise on other alarmist topics such as glaciers, skeptics are skeptical (with good cause) of alarmist claims. Certainly, if it continues to warm and the earth warms towards temperatures that existed in the Medieval Warm Period, we may get to a point where people can farm in Greenland at the same places the Viking settlers once farmed in the 10th century AD before global cooling wiped out the Greenland Viking settlements. If we do get that warm, then it seems likely that overall glaciers will get smaller. Of course, the Medieval Warm Period was a good time for people and animals. It was the cold after that was so damaging.

There would still be no evidence that CO2 had anything to do with your hypothetical melting.
Glaciers started melting after the depths of the LIA, and more so after its end. The null hypothesis that nothing out of the ordinary is happening can’t be rejected.

There is another Little Ice Age coming, this is just the beginning. The sun is already calming down. Read about Maunder minimum. Humans and all our activities are insignificant, get over it (and yourself).

Climate change isn’t destroying the planet: pollution is. But are plastics manufacturers reducing the amount of plastic in products and for packaging? No. It’s not profitable. Are the chemical manufacturers reducing the amount of toxic crap we use to kill everything that moves that isn’t human? No. It’s not profitable. For a hundred years and more, we’ve set out to destroy life for money. Now the deed it done and life on Earth is dying. Instead of addressing the problem: Profit over Well-being, we quibble over whether it’s ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’. Climate change or global warming, both are the direct result of pollution overload, not the culprit. We can’t do anything about the former, but we can choose to STOP SHOPPING for stuff we don’t even need, but just want, like a crow with a shiny object. While life in our ocean is dying, we’re throwing plastic away as fast as we can buy it and poisoning any living thing that has no “economic value” – god forbid a sugar ant be tolerated in a house or a mouse in a garage. Warmist or Wattsupist is irrelevant: the PROBLEM is pollution and we are all guilty to greater or lesser degree.

Glaciers may be smaller now than a century ago in 1917, but they have been getting smaller virtually each year since 1917 (actually, they have been growing smaller for a lot longer period), long before AGW. Secondly, if temps warmed up enough, say in 1918, to start the melt, and stayed flat ever since, the glaciers would still be melting. Finally, the growth or shrinkage of glaciers is as dependent on winter snowfall as it is summer temperatures. Without detailed precipation records, you don’t know if any changes are due to temperature variations or changes in snowfall.
So you fail on all counts regardless of what happens.

They probably should be terrified of a new ice age and all the crop yield destruction it will bring.
I think I’m going to retire to Hawaii or Costa Rica. That way I won’t be caught in the collateral damage crossfire, hopefully.

Mega, who is saying there is no melting?
Really are you warmists so unaware of what people HERE think about Glaciers melting?
What is missing is are the photos being left out,that shows most of the melting happened BEFORE 1950.

Mega,
Um, because most melting happened before 1950, when CO2 took off. Thus, we can be sure that CO2 isn’t the reason for the melting.
However, the sun did increase in power from 1850 to 1950, so it’s at least a plausible culprit, unlike CO2, which can’t be considered.

Mega – you’re pulling the same stunt all the warmist pull
Try showing pics of the same glacier over a several years beginning circa 1850 – you will notice that significant percentage of the melt occurred before C02 became a factor – but you already knew that and thats why your pulled the same trick b y only showing one comparison instead of a decade by decade comparison

I couldn’t find an actual date on any of those photos. Is the comparison of Mar 1880 vs Sep 2008 (or whatever year it offered)? The point of the original post was, recently the glaciers may be growing. Show a day-by-day, or at least a carefully dated comparison, of the last 10-20 years to prove the post wrong.

Sara,
FYI: The Indian federal government published a report earlier this month that documents and clearly states that of all the glaciers in the Himalayas a large majority is stable, a small minority is declining and a large minority is in fact increasing.
Won’t hear about that in the MSM though.

Climate change is a scam created to make westerners use to living poor, to inflate the cost of energy as well, and also to make our economy’s weaker.
This is nothing more than a fear tactic employed by communist subversive individuals for the purpose of giving them control over western wealth.

Because it’s warming, there is more moisture in the air, so there is more snow, and thus the glaciers grow. Unless the glaciers are retreating then that is because it’s warming, but not with moisture in the air. Or something like that…

IF true, just how inconvenient would that be for Gore & Co? However, far more verifiable historical and present data clearly necessary to avoid false conclusions (not that that has ever bothered the warmistas). So, give that man a grant!

One of the truths about Glacier National Park the warmist extremists conveniently leave out all the time is the real reason why the glacier receded significantly starting in the early 80’s. Anyone remember what happened in May 1980 – Mt. St. Helens blew. What direction did the ask plume go – directly over GNP. What happens when all that ash lands on snow and ice – it more readily absorbs heat causing the snow and ice to melt quicker. When I visited GNP 6 years ago the cute ranger guide was spouting the global warming nonsense and had no clue regarding the ash fallout impact on the glacier. I wonder how many hundreds of thousand visitors were duped by omitting this important fact.

This article is extremely vague – no specific measurements given, very inexact comparison of photos, very unscientific approach etc. etc.
If you really want to find out the truth of what is happening with glaciers around the world, then I suggest you look at some more reputable, and thus reliable, research from the National Snow & Ice Data Center:https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/climate.html

You’re blaming the article for being vague, but failing to mention that the propaganda produced evidently by park authorities on which the article is focused is likewise extremely inexact and misleading. Scientific integrity would demand that data be presented demonstrating that it is known that there have been many periods of glacier expansion and contraction over many millennia long before the Industrial Revolution. This dishonesty is driving the doubt, I’m afraid. Also, it isn’t whether change is happening (which everyone with a brain has always known contrary to the propaganda by people railing at “deniers”), it is to what degree all factors are causing it, whether we should do something about it, and what should be done if we can.

VERY GOOD.. This stuff is still left over from Barry Obama’s propaganda blitz to enslave Americans to a fake agenda and more government,plus higher taxes so the government can save us from imaginary science…

“Scientific integrity would demand that data be presented demonstrating that it is known that there have been many periods of glacier expansion and contraction over many millennia long before the Industrial Revolution.”
Scientific integrity would be to admit that 11,000 or so years ago, much of North America was under ice, and that we have been warming and glaciers melting for 11,000 years. This did not start yesterday, or 50 years ago, or 250 years ago. By all means, search wiki for “Laurentide Ice Sheet”. Canada was completely covered in ice, and the Great Lakes were formed. FURTHER, temperature records indicate that, even without humans, the Earth was EXPECTED to warm as much as it has, and get even warmer. LOOK AT THE TEMPERATURE RECORD. Nothing that has happened so far is out of the ordinary. We are continuing from the past 10,000 years of melting.

Chris,whines again,while failing to notice that NOBODY has disputed the retreats since the 1960’s!
“Oh, and this post is a scientific paper? Please, it’s a few photos. The scientists in the link that Griff posted go back to Grinnell (and the other 36 named glaciers) every few months and make measurements.”
What YOU,Griff and Ivan continually fail to do is see the ENTIRE history of that region during the current Interglacial period. See what David posted: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/20/are-the-glaciers-in-glacier-national-park-growing/comment-page-1/#comment-2614822
“The “small glaciers” of Glacier National Park, Montana may have not existed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The geological evidence suggests that they formed about 7,000 years ago as the Earth’s climate began to cool after the HCO (Neoglaciation).”
They didn’t even exist just a few thousand years ago.

Sunsettommy,
Why do you post about small glaciers when the article is about one of the large, named glaciers? And you ignore the data points in the link that I provided, which shows the decline continuing since 1998 – with subsequent data points in 2005 and 2015.

Chris, both YOU and Griff went back to 1966 in your links. The melting was never disputed by me and others,so drop your Red Herring attempt.
What I did in MY reply was about the much longer HISTORY of the region,namely about the glacier in question. I wrote,
“Chris,whines again,while failing to notice that NOBODY has disputed the retreats since the 1960’s!
“Oh, and this post is a scientific paper? Please, it’s a few photos. The scientists in the link that Griff posted go back to Grinnell (and the other 36 named glaciers) every few months and make measurements.”
What YOU,Griff and Ivan continually fail to do is see the ENTIRE history of that region during the current Interglacial period. See what David posted: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/20/are-the-glaciers-in-glacier-national-park-growing/comment-page-1/#comment-2614822
“The “small glaciers” of Glacier National Park, Montana may have not existed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The geological evidence suggests that they formed about 7,000 years ago as the Earth’s climate began to cool after the HCO (Neoglaciation).”
They didn’t even exist just a few thousand years ago.”
NONE of the GNP glaciers existed a few thousand years ago,yet the world went on,humans thrived during that time INCLUDING the then well watered Sahara.

Chris the TROLL continues to ignore my repeated statement about melting:
He writes his latest feeble attempt at a Red Herring,since I NEVER disputed the melting of GNP at all.
“Sunsettommy,
So what about 1966? The data shows that the glaciers have shrunk substantially since 1998.”
=========================
Here are my already posted replies:
“Chris,whines again,while failing to notice that NOBODY has disputed the retreats since the 1960’s!”
“Mega, who is saying there is no melting?”
“Chris, both YOU and Griff went back to 1966 in your links. The melting was never disputed by me and others,so drop your Red Herring attempt.”
“Warmists keeps ignoring the obvious reason why they started retreating since the 1700’s,the LIA was waning to the current modern warming phase.”
“The retreats are undeniable, but no evidence presented to show that it is “abnormal” at all in the YOUR link. Just a lot “oh my god!” crap all over in it.”
“Griff, your link leaves some things out that is critical,such as the fact that it is declining because we have been warming since the END of the LIA.”
“Blair, show us HERE, who disputes the melting of the Glaciers at GNP in recent decades.”
Chris,stop being a stupid troll.

Sunsettommy, Roots’ PhD is in Sociology. The “university” he founded is not accredited. It has a grand total of 2 instructors – Roots and a gentleman named Right on John. Right on John “is the alias of a Canadian-born super innovator, master mechanic and inventor who hails from the Canadian Rockies.” Now he may be a guest author, but nobody forced WUWT to run his post.

Chris, your comment about Roots background, has done NOTHING to address the main point of the article.
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
Drop your dead in the water qualification fallacy angle,since it is worthless!

Sunsettommy
“Chris, your comment about Roots background, has done NOTHING to address the main point of the article.”
Ah but that’s the thing these guys like Griff and the other trolls do, they attack they person writing the post, more often than not with pure slander like Griff has done many times i.e. Dr Soon, Dr Crocket and so own. Chris is just another slandering Troll.

Bob Boder, if you bothered to read my comment above, you will see that I posted a link to proper research on the glaciers of GNP. Measurements taken every few months on all the named glaciers, and detailed summaries provided for review. You, on the other hand, are impressed by a couple of photos taken on a day hike to one glacier.
Next time you need to have work done on your teeth, why don’t you go to a car mechanic? Because clearly to you relevant experience doesn’t matter.I have no issue with someone who has background in one area, and then applies himself and becomes an expert in another. But in this case Roots does not have relevant education, nor has he done substantial work in the field. I guess to you glacier science is simply taking a hike and taking a few photos.

Chris
“Bob Boder, if you bothered to read my comment above, you will see that I posted a link to proper research on the glaciers of GNP. Measurements taken every few months on all the named glaciers, and detailed summaries provided for review. You, on the other hand, are impressed by a couple of photos taken on a day hike to one glacier.”
No where did I defend the post or state that you were correct or incorrect.
“Sunsettommy, Roots’ PhD is in Sociology. The “university” he founded is not accredited. It has a grand total of 2 instructors – Roots and a gentleman named Right on John. Right on John “is the alias of a Canadian-born super innovator, master mechanic and inventor who hails from the Canadian Rockies.” Now he may be a guest author, but nobody forced WUWT to run his post.”
What does any of this have to do with the post? The answer is nothing! The post is not portrayed as a scientific paper it is simple observation, you are attacking the credential of someone making an observation, hence my comment and your outing as a troll.

I know anyone who agrees with this will be seen as a biased critic, but here goes. I agree with your assessment. I scrolled the article looking for the comparative information and pictures and was disappointed to find them lacking. Before I go any further, I am a free-market loving, diesel- 4×4 driving, outboard powered boat loving, man-made climate change denier. Not to say I deny climate change or even global warming, it’s been happening for millions of years with or without man! I was just at Glacier NP in July and several locals had mentioned the amount of snow the last few years has been heavy. Still the article need measurements taken over a period of time to quantifiably justify the proposal.

ben, all good points. I feel like Wall-e, “Need input! Need input!” But really, I think the only point of the post was: the glaciers may be growing recently, but will the Parks Service even acknowledge that as a possibility?

Ivankinsman, I went and read that link. I especially liked the sentence where it claims that “Some scientists” believe that the glaciers have been retreating due to the industrial revolution which began in 1760.
It appears both the writer and the average reader is incapable of truly appreciating this sentence in all of its propaganda glory.
So, let’s use this as a teaching moment.
First, let’s look at the words “Some scientists”. This is exceptionally vague. Which scientists? How many scientists? Is there any proof or is it a theory? Why not name the scientists? Why not name the study? Historically, vague statements are made because they are an attempt to make suspicious ideas (read propaganda) sound mainstream.
Second, let’s look at the main portion of this statement. The assertion is made that the glaciers have been retreating since 1760 and this is attributed to the actions, and only the actions of man. Now, that isn’t said outright, but by pointing out the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is clear that the retreat is attributed to the actions of man kind. What make this really interesting is that the statement places all the blame on man, without even a minor attribution to other things, like natural temperature variation or precipitation variation.
All of this, even if people don’t realize it, is implying that if the industrial revolution had not happened, then these glaciers would not have retreated.
Think about the ridiculousness of that statement for a moment. It is almost as if the writer believes in a pristine earth which is unchanging, perfect and right without the corrupting influence of man.
Do you believe this without reservation?
Look, anyone who would make such an asinine statement is obviously writing propaganda. Even worse, the rest of the link really gives no information except for some great looking pictures. It is obvious that the page was written by someone whose degree is probably in marketing.

1 in a 100,000. They are really giving a .99999 probability for climate change?
Um….no.
Seriously. No.
Look, data analysis is what I do. No professional will ever give a 99.999 percent chance of ANYTHING!!!
I would love to see the design of experiments on that one. Curious about the H and H naught.

Ivan, the POINT Andrew made flew right over your head.Here is the part you ignored:
“The assertion is made that the glaciers have been retreating since 1760 and this is attributed to the actions, and only the actions of man. Now, that isn’t said outright, but by pointing out the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is clear that the retreat is attributed to the actions of man kind. What make this really interesting is that the statement places all the blame on man, without even a minor attribution to other things, like natural temperature variation or precipitation variation.”
Warmists keeps ignoring the obvious reason why they started retreating since the 1700’s,the LIA was waning to the current modern warming phase.
Ivan, Griff and many warmists like them ignore the obvious because they are driven my the “mankind is at fault” mania.
Not only that,the Mountain glaciers are a dribble compared to Antarctica and Greenland,which make up about 99.25% of the glaciers of the world. That means LESS than 1% for the rest warmists are so irrationally worried about.

Another brainless crying statement made by a certified warmist loon, Ivankinsman:
” ivankinsman
September 20, 2017 at 8:08 am Edit
And here is another one of glacial retreat in the Alps. Don’t tell me this is a natural phenomenon – the rate of the decrease is abnormal:”
The article goes on to great length of large retreats as if that was abnormal,yet presents ZERO evidence of it since they make no mention of Climate Optimum,Minoan,Roman,Medeivel warm periods effects on the Mountain Glaciers.
The retreats are undeniable, but no evidence presented to show that it is “abnormal” at all in the YOUR link. Just a lot “oh my god!” crap all over in it.
How can you be this STUPID Ivan?

Ivankinsman
“And here is another one of glacial retreat in the Alps. Don’t tell me this is a natural phenomenon – the rate of the decrease is abnormal:”
ITS NATURAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there I told you, the only thing abnormal is your thought processes.

ivankinsman September 20, 2017 at 8:08 am
Nothing unusual is happening to glaciers anywhere.
In the depths of the LIA, Swiss villages were threatened by growing glaciers. In the Medieval Warm Period, they were farther up the valleys than they are now. They naturally wax and wane.
Some passes in the Alps are only open during warm periods, and are now opening again. Artifacts found in them are all from warm periods, ie the Holocene Climate Optimum, the Minoan, Roman and Medieval WPs.

This article is extremely vague – no specific measurements given, very inexact comparison of photos, very unscientific approach etc.

That’s what I was thinking. This is a UNIVERSITY field trip and the evidence presented is a crappy cell phone photo from—perhaps, it’s never validated—the same vantage point? No analysis of depth, glacial terminus location, or anything?
I’d expect far more from collegiate-level excursions. They publish things like this for cripes sake. Why do it half-assed?

The so called university (from its own web site ) the University is mostly a libertarian blog ” Root, with his sociology PhD (in my opinion there is nothing more to say, but I will) hopes to build the University into a major institution of higher learning.
This reminds me of a scene in a TV show I just saw where a character said he “hoped” something of the other. His buddy said Hope!!! Why don’t you put all your hopes in your right hand and all your [rude word for fecal matter] in your left and tell me which one gets full first.
Just like the MMGW Cult, this article is a load of nonsense.

What do you make of the fact that a large USCS map in Glacier Bay National Park, AK, there for all to see, documents that by far the largest retreat of the multiple glaciers there occurred between the 1790s and 1850s, completely undercutting the CAGW/CACC BS served up by the park rangers?

There haven’t been any since the end of Neoglaciation. However, back when glaciers were generally advancing, entire towns were bulldozed by glaciers.

In addition to increasing grain prices and lower wine production, there were many examples of economic impact by the dramatic cooling of the climate. Due to famine, storms, and growth of glaciers ,many farmsteads were destroyed, which resulted in less tax revenues collected due to decreased value of the properties (Lamb, 1995.)
Cod fishing greatly decreased, especially for the Scottish fisherman, as the cod moved farther south. The cod fishery at the Faeroe Islands began to fail around 1615 and failed altogether for thirty years between 1675 and 1704 (Lamb, 1995.) In the Hohe Tauern mountains of the Austrian Alps, advancing glaciers closed the gold mines of the Archbishop of Salzburg who was one of the wealthiest dukes in the empire. The succession of two or three bad summers where the miners could not rely on work in the mines caused them to find employment elsewhere, which resulted in an abrupt end to the mining operations (Bryson, 1977.)
[…]Impact of Glaciers
During the post-MWP cooling of the climate, glaciers in many parts of Europe began to advance. Glaciers negatively influenced almost every aspect of life for those unfortunate enough to be living in their path. Glacial advances throughout Europe destroyed farmland and caused massive flooding. On many occasions bishops and priests were called to bless the fields and to pray that the ice stopped grinding forward (Bryson, 1977.) Various tax records show glaciers over the years destroying whole towns caught in their path. A few major advances, as noted by Ladurie (1971), appear below:
1595: Gietroz (Switzerland) glacier advances, dammed Dranse River, and caused flooding of Bagne with 70 deaths.
1600-10: Advances by Chamonix (France) glaciers cause massive floods which destroyed three villages and severely damaged a fourth. One village had stood since the 1200’s.
1670-80’s: Maximum historical advances by glaciers in eastern Alps. Noticeable decline of human population by this time in areas close to glaciers, whereas population elsewhere in Europe had risen.
1695-1709: Iceland glaciers advance dramatically, destroying farms.
1710-1735: A glacier in Norway was advancing at a rate of 100 m per year for 25 years.
1748-50: Norwegian glaciers achieved their historical maximum LIA positions.

Chris: Retreating glaciers have very little effect on stream flow. The Himalayan glaciers supply less than 1% of the water in the rivers downstream. I have done a similar calculation on the Athabasca system in Alberta. Over 99% of stream flow happens AFTER the glacier. In other words, rain and snow melt.http://www.environment.alberta.ca/apps/OSEM/ATHMCM.aspx

Chris
“What are examples of advancing glaciers that are causing problems?”
1 Mile thick ice over Manhattan!
God where do all these trolls come from, is there a degenerative brain hiring program for trolls or something.
“What was the name on the jar”
“Abby”
“Abby?, Abby what?”
“Abby Normal”
‘YOU GOT ME AN ABNORMAL BRAIN, YOU IDIOT!”

I am OK with advancing glaciers. After all, I live on the terminal morraine/outwash plain of a really large glacier that advanced and then retreated – Long Island. Come to think of it, isn’t that what glaciers do. Advance- retreat – repeat.

Chris and Ivan are so keen to mock an imaginary WUWT reader who supposedly “rely” on this unscientific “single snapshot”, they are both blind to the several WUWT regulars who have pointed out the obvious- Chris and Ivan rely on faux science that is based on the equivalent of a geologic GIF (I hope I have that term right, I’m trying to refer to a two-second video).

This image is priceless…https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/img_0283.jpg
The Greenland and Antarctic ice caps have been relatively permanent features throughout the Quaternary (possibly since the Oligocene in the case of Antarctica). If these ice masses melted, it would be a big deal. On the other hand, small glaciers and year-round Arctic sea ice have not been permanent features. They are relatively recent and probably rare features of the Holocene. The geological evidence indicates that the presence these small ice masses is anomalous.
The “small glaciers” of Glacier National Park, Montana may have not existed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The geological evidence suggests that they formed about 7,000 years ago as the Earth’s climate began to cool after the HCO (Neoglaciation).

The history of glaciation within current Glacier National Park boundaries spans centuries of glacial growth and recession, carving the features we see today. Glaciers were present within current Glacier National Park boundaries as early as 7,000 years ago but may have survived an early Holocene warm period (Carrara, 1989), making them much older. These modest glaciers varied in size, tracking climatic changes, but did not grow to their Holocene maximum size until the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) around A.D. 1850. While they may not have formed in their entirety during the LIA, their maximum perimeters can be documented through mapping of lateral and terminal moraines. (Key, 2002) The extent and mass of these glaciers, as well as glaciers around the globe, has clearly decreased during the 20th century in response to warmer temperatures.

Climate reconstructions representative of the Glacier National Park region extend back multiple centuries and show numerous long-duration drought and wet periods that influenced the mass balance of glaciers (Pederson et al. 2004). Of particular note was an 80-year period (~1770-1840) of cool, wet summers and above-average winter snowfall that led to a rapid growth of glaciers just prior to the end of the LIA. Thus, in the context of the entire Holocene, the size of glaciers at the end of the LIA was an anomaly of sorts. In fact, the large extent of ice coverage removed most of the evidence of earlier glacier positions by overriding terminal and lateral moraines.
Tree-ring based climate records and historic photographs indicate the initiation of frontal recession and ice mass thinning between A.D. 1860 and 1880. The alignment of decadal-scale climate anomalies over the early 20th century produced a period of glacial recession somewhat analogous to conditions experienced over the past few decades. The coupling of hot, dry summers with substantial decreases in winter snowpack (~30% of normal) produced dramatic recession rates as high as 100 m/yr from A.D. 1917-1941 (Pederson et al. 2004). These multidecadal episodes have substantially impacted the mass balance of glaciers since A.D. 1900.
[…]

Wait – stop right there, David Middleton.
You have to understand the strange mind of the Warmian or Warmunist. They do not like change of any kind. They do not understand it. They don’t even like the change of seasons or solar eclipses. If you will recall, several people asked online if the recent total solar eclipse could be changed to another date. They are, indeed, that stupid.
So, if you want to ask those mindless morons whether they prefer 1 – stay as cold as the LIA, or 2 – advancing or retreating glaciers, they won’t understand what you are talking about.
They do not have a clue to the reality that exists outside their electronic world. An entire generation of them was recently described in a news story as having the minds of 15 year old children, which I thought was rather generous of the writer of that piece.
To reiterate what I said, they do not like change of any kind unless it’s a more expensive and cooler piece of electronic stuff, or a new coffee flavor for the latte. (I’m exaggerating this.)
Me, I’d just like normal fall, winter, spring and summer weather. Normal spring means enough rain for the bloodroot and trilliums to bloom in large masses so that I can get some spectacular photos of them in April.

Climate has little to do with the CAGW crowd. It’s just what ties them together at this time. If it wasn’t climate it would be the bomb (remember the ban the bomb and nuclear winter folks?) or any number of other things when white men, capitalism and technology come together in the same sentence.
There’s a certain mindset that cannot stand a prosperous western middle class.

As to your “Warmists Do Not Like Change” comment (Hip Hip Hooray for the truth) I offer this analysis – taken from my website.
Timing is Everything
To say that we must stabilize the temperature of the entire planet, letting it neither go up or go down, is to say about it that which was said by Goldilocks about the bowl of porridge. Just think about it. We are the luckiest people ever to live on this planet up until now, and probably until the end of time. We live here when the temperature is “just right.”
I do truly feel blessed, or rather I feel lucky because blessed has too many politically incorrect connotations to be used in an article about this topic, knowing this fact. And in a fit of exuberance, I sat down and gave it all some grateful reflection. And guess what. Up until the global warming cult told me this, I didn’t realize it. And more importantly, I realized that there was no way I could have ever realized it.
All my life the temperature has been changing. It changes from summer to winter. It changes from Month to month and day to day. It even, I realized with shock, changes from hour to hour.
I was reduced to a quivering mass of “just right porridge” when I realized that the temperature even changed when I went into the shade under my tree. Not only that, but it changed in ways that no sane person could put into a pattern, other than in the general Summer Fall Winter Spring way. By the way, wasn’t she a character on the Buffalo Bob TV show back in the fifties? Just another reason to be glad one is alive now.
The hard part thinking about this came when I realized that I had only been aware of the temperature for a bit over fifty years. Not being that egotistical, I knew that my own personal lifespan did not define the parameters. So I looked into it some more. And guess what I found out.
The temperature has been changing since there was a temperature. Sometimes up. Sometimes down. Sometimes slowly. Some times quickly. It has changed in all eras, epochs, and periods. It has changed in all places, both wet like the oceans, and dry like the Sahara. Which used to be wet.
I was absolutely stunned to realize just exactly how lucky I was to be living in the “just right times.” Give thanks to the Goracle and go buy a carbon credit.

I couldn’t make it through all the point/counterpoint before the last few hairs on my 70 year began to hurt. My takeaway from this is that whenever the glaciers began, before then it was TOO DAMNED WARM.

David and others,
Several years ago, a USGS website indicated that all the Glacier NP glaciers were retreating EXCEPT two large ice fields on the north side of the park, which received little or no direct sunlight, and had been stable for over 100 years. I interpreted that as strongly suggesting that insolation was more important than ambient air temperature in determining the stability of the glaciers.
That particular website disappeared a few years ago. I don’t know exactly when it was replaced by the current one, which no longer makes the claim about the stable ice fields, but I think it was about the time Obama took office.
There is a third condition of glaciers to consider. Instead of ablating exclusively at the front of the glacier, and appearing to retreat, another possibility is for the zone of accumulation to receive less snow and to shrink through melting and sublimation. When it got thin enough, it would then no longer deform plastically and push ice ahead of it. The ice in place on low-gradient slopes, and less than about 200 feet thick, will simply stagnate and slowly melt. When I visited the Franz-Joseph glacier several decades ago, that appeared to be what I was observing, rather than the snout just moving up slope because the ablation rate exceeded the foreword motion rate.
Glaciers are complex dynamic systems that make poor ‘Coal Mine Canaries’ unless abundant, high-quality measurements (not just pictures) are taken along the length of the system over a period of decades, to assess what process(es) is/are dominating the changes. There is no doubt that most glaciers in the world are retreating, but it does not follow that the changes are due solely to increasing air temperatures. For alarmists to make such a claim either indicates they don’t understand the dynamics of glaciers, or that they are purposely being misleading.

Referring to the ice man, if he was buried 5000 years ago than it must have been warmer prior to that time. Read John Kerr’s book (inconvenient skeptic) as I did and you will have a completely different perspective on climate

It is a good book, have it in my growing list of climate related books at my place.
John, show that many Mountain glaciers didn’t exist until around 2,500 years ago,when Insolation went negative in the North. Some even started even BEFORE Insolation went negative.
Warmist look at so little of the Interglacial time frame,which is why they make dumb claims so easily.

Wow, global warming is real and affecting us right now. All you have to do to see it is to fly to Kalispell Montana, drive an hour and a half into the mountains, and then hike 5.5 miles. Once there it will be clear we are all doomed. DOOMED!!

Hey Holly, have you ever been to Glacier National park? It’s pretty obvious the glaciers are retreating….. obviously not much we can do to prevent that from happening, but to call it propaganda just shows how ignorant you are…. seriously a guy comparing a photo to a trashcan???? that’s not proof

Frank Bolling, yes I have been to Glacier several times. Yes, I have seen the glaciers and photos of same. And I have heard first hand the unwavering, unquestioning, propaganda statements by the indoctrinated who permit NO serious questions. This is not science, sir. Science appreciates all questions, and on this subject there are and have been MANY. The real “deniers” are the people who have no questions! You clearly have missed the entire point of the article.

Glaciers on Mt baker, not far away, have been shown to be cyclic in naturehttps://s19.postimg.org/j23ct07zn/mt_baker.png
Just like Arctic temperatures are cyclic in nature. (this graph overlays Reykjavik temperatures on the AMO)https://s19.postimg.org/yavxs1i7n/amoreyk.jpg
Just like the growth and decrease of Swiss glaciershttps://s19.postimg.org/xxtc8onhv/swiss_glaciers.png
But all of this is small stuff once you realise that many of the glaciers just didn’t exist before “neoglaciation”
Harping on about decreasing glaciers, decreasing Arctic sea ice, Greenland melt etc…
….. is the most idiotic form of climate change denial.
Denial that the current global temperature has warmed only slightly from the coldest period in 10,000 years.

This most idiotic form of climate change denial relies totally and completely on remaining totally and wilfully ignorant about anything before 1979.
This denial is the only thing that allows the likes of griff and ivan to keep yapping their meaningless AGW agenda claptrap.

On a Glacier National Park hike to Ice Berg Lake in 2004, our ranger guide was telling us about the receding glaciers in the park. I asked, “Global Warming?” I got a very short curt answer “No! …” I was surprised and wondered how long that response would apply. I didn’t ask any more questions about that.
In 1960 on a hike to the Grinnell the rangers told us the glacier had been shrinking for decades. I don’t remember what we were told were the reasons.
This item, “Are the glaciers in Glacier National Park growing?” and it’s video aren’t exactly scientific. I won’t be posting a link anywhere else as evidence to say, “See! Glaciers are growing – Climate Change is bunk.”

Steve – I was at Glacier NP in 2005 or 2006. We stopped at the logan pass visitor center ( going to the sun road at the continental divide). The rangers prepared speeches/ presentations had a prominent AGW promotion.
As others have noted above and below – Glacier parks glaciers had significant melting in the 1920-1930’s (partly due to dry weather for a couple of decades).
It is refreshing to notice that some rangers take a broader few of the science.

…Upon our return to the Hotel after visiting the Glacier, we noticed that our brand-new photos appear to show that the Grinnell Glacier has grown slightly from the 2008 images that are displayed on the Hotel walls….
If you have noticed this you are a Climate Denier ™ and must immediately apply to Room 101 for re-education…

My complaint is the how the warmist always show an early photo of a glacier 1890 – 1910 era, then show a recent photo of the same glacier – giving the false impression that all the melting is during the recent decade.
Rarely do the warmist show several photos spanning all the decades – why – because the time lapse photos would show a significant percentage of the glacier melt occurred in the 1920’s & 1930’s.
It would blow the narrative

Exactly. The rhetorical question I use around here (live pretty close to Glacier Park) is: The glaciers shrunk from 1850 until the first pictures around 1890.. Was that man made global warming?
The recent propaganda pictures they use are all taken after dry winters. Never do you see a picture of glaciers after the winter of 2009, where they finished the next summer about 50% larger than usual.
The fact that those glaciers got “slightly” bigger after last winter’s early melt and low springtime snowfall is anecdotal evidence that the warming hysteria is just that.. hysteria.

I’m still bitter that Going-To-The-Sun road was closed due to snow when I visited one May/June some years ago. But the Montana police were some of the politest I ever met when the speedometer kept on not working in the rental car. It was also the first place I understood the term “big sky”.

re: “when the speedometer kept on not working in the rental car.” MH
During 1968 to 1970 I spent two years in the service in Montana. One did not need a functioning speedometer then as there was no speed limits during daylight hours. Driving at night in the long winter was foolish as one could perish if one’s car hit a snow drift and during the summer driving in the dark risked injury because of cattle; open range law prevailed. (Once driving at night, I nearly was severely injured or killed when the vehicle a few hundred yards ahead plowed into a herd of cattle so my car was able to stop in time in the dark. Had my car been in the lead I doubt if I would be typing now.) At that time it was the law or suggested that one never exceed 55 mph driving in the dark in Montana.
Dan Kurt

Speaking of instrument error… Wife was just watching the Weather Propaganda Channel. I happened to hear a piece of it. Apparently one flood gauge along the Rio de la Plata (Puerto Rico) is reading 80 feet above flood level. Previous record reading being something like 29 feet.
Now, I heard “we can’t verify this” twice – and EIGHTY FEET at least two dozen times.
Uh-huh. Want to bet anything that this gets walked back at about 3 AM sometime in October? Or if it does…
(Yes, I did check – apparently no dams anywhere that could have let go.)

Wups! Sigh, searching for “dams” turns up nothing. Happened to think after clicking the little button to try “lakes” – and there are actually two dams: one forming Carite Lake and the other La Plata Lake.Just possible that one or both of those came down upstream of this gauge. Although I think that would have been on all the major news feeds (although I wouldn’t put it past TWC to conveniently miss it).

When I visited Glacier in 2008, a Park Ranger was making much of the shrinkage caused by climate change and the 125 glaciers that had disappeared since the mid-19th century. I asked when most of the shrinkage occurred and he gave a long answer which boiled down to about two-thirds of them (over 100) had already disappeared by 1950.
As the IPCC says detectable AGW began around 1958, it’s pretty clear that the Glacier Park’s problems have very little to do with SUVs.

“yes, but the retreat has increased since 1966”
So glaciers were retreating naturally by some unknown warming mechanism in the 1850s. The fact that the rate changed in no way implies that man is involved. That is working backwards from the assumption that man is affecting it. If we don’t know why it warmed in the 1850s then we ALSO have no idea whether the rate of natural warming is constant, variable or accelerating. There is a logical fallacy of placing the cart before the horse and argument from ignorance in your assertion.

Griff,
Your link has the statement, “The retreat has happened as temperatures in the region have risen by 1.5°F since 1895 as heat-trapping greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere.” I’ll assume for the sake of argument that the statement is correct. Now, further assuming an average lapse rate of about 4 deg F per 1,000 feet of elevation change, one might reasonably expect the static position of the glacier snouts to retreat less than 400 feet upslope. Yet, there is a band of about 2,000 ft in elevation that is barren of vegetation, suggesting that it has not been re-vegetated since melting of the glaciers recently covering the slopes.
Perhaps you could explain to me and everyone else just how it is that an air temperature change of 1.5 deg F over the last one and a quarter centuries is responsible for a change in elevation of the glaciers by a factor of more than 5X what would be expected.

The National Park Service is another government agency that lies.
My first interaction with them was when I was in Acadia ME to run the 1/2 marathon.
This was just after they started restricting the number of people that could go into the park. They wanted to restrict the number of runners (the runners were not happy!).
Again during the “government shutdown” a few years ago, these NAZIs in straw hats closed down the WWII memorial in DC. The site is open air and requires no NPS folks, yet they were there to refuse entry to WWII vets. As a vet this was disgusting.
Then I was talking to someone I knew about his becoming a park ranger.
He had to get a masters degree to be a park ranger (!)
What disturbed me is that he had to toe the line about what caused the Civil War. He mentioned
he could only preset the Civil War as a fight against slavery. Anyone old enough to remember know it was about states rights and the legal right for states to secede from the union.
He mentioned something to me which I investigated, and it seems congress requires the NPS to present the Civil War as a fight against slavery. Checking into it I found a bill passed in congress, sponsored by Jesse Jackson Jr, that mandated the NPS to only mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War.
The NPS has become a conduit for leftist propaganda, such as glaciers disappearing.

Let the Leftists yawp their nonsense far and wide; when it turns up verifiably untrue, as in this instance, they just lose more credibility and sound borderline insane. Have to say that sign at the park blew me away as the most egregious instance of bald-faced propaganda I’ve ever seen. Whoa!

They tell the rangers to suggest one topic specifically so that it doesn’t become a political battle ground for the rangers. If they told them to only talk about states rights, you’d have folks upset about slavery. If they talk about slavery, you all find exception and do the exact same. Put yourself into the shoes of the ranger who has to help thousands of people a day, not argue with you.

They should not be providing “sound bites” about the cause of any historic event – when causes actually require hours to even get an approximate handle on. They should be telling visitors about what happened at their particular posting.
As for Jackson… Not surprising. I am surprised that Senator Hayakawa didn’t push through a companion bill to require the employees at Pearl Harbor to tell visitors only about the extension of Western Imperialism to Japan that “caused” the Pacific part of the war.

I recall visiting a glacier on the Seward peninsula in Alaska in 2010. the wall that was part of the viewing area had been smashed apart. The reason was that the glacier had “unexpectedly” advanced by many metres in the winter and the viewing area was going to have to be moved
Also got a lovely view of a wolverine hunting across the ice that day. Happy memories!

It’s about bleeping time the glaciers started growing. The Russians have been predicting a mini ice age that should be starting about now. link I dream that it will be so obvious by 2030 that all the climate change is natural that it will permanently shut up the alarmists.

We were in Glacier Bay in Alaska in 2016. We had been to Glacier Bay in 2010. The glaciers had grown more than noticeably in that time frame, both in their expansion in to the bay and their height. It was quite a big difference. I commented to the government-provided guide about this. He said, “oh, that is real evidence of global warming. They are just sliding down the mountains faster.”
I asked him how that accounted for the great increase in thickness and height. He looked at me and said, “You are just a denier. Shame on you.” He walked off to another part of the expedition boat.

Happened to me three years ago on a Holland America Alaska cruise. A paid staff member who lectured on natural history topics on the ship and did some off ship excursions treated me in a similar manner. During one of her “lectures” I asked some disconcerting questions about her points on anthropogenic global warming which were laden in her narration in Glacier Bay and during her lectures. She brooked no patience with anything I posed. I tried talking to her alone and she just excused herself. She exhibited the Logic Tight Mind of the True Believer.
Dan Kurt

Dan,
You show up to the party 40 years late and start asking questions now? Why didn’t you ask questions along the way like most people.
To try to hold this woman responsible for educating you, when her job, as you describe it, is to be a “tour group leader”, seems pretty irresponsible at best. If you are so upset about the information and want to know, then instead of wasting time arguing about the education the cruise line gave the tour guide, go learn for yourself. Otherwise, you just seem patronizing.
Jim

anyone that calls me a denier to my face will be sat on their arse with a bloody nose shortly afterwards. i have zero time or patience for brainwashed morons, particularly those being paid from the public purse.

I never realized how tiny this whole area is. Think about how much snow & ice Boston gets rid of every year. This “glacier” look to be smaller than that. If a snow pile lasts all summer, does it qualify as a glacier? What’s the size requirement for a glacier?

Bob boder,
I’m not a troll, I’m pointing out an incredibly lame effort at research, which is what this trip was purported to be. This is supposed to be a scientific site, not a place where folks go to post photos of day trips.

Now that is a much better article. The same person is being quoted in this article as the one linked by Griff but this time the person gives more info.
For example, they indicated that there was a warm, dry period in the park from 1917 to 1941 that was a double whammy to the glaciers.
Hey Griff, does that fit your narrative?

A few years ago we worked to dispel the myth of the vanishing Cascade Mtn snowpack, now it looks like we need to work on dispelling the myth of the vanishing Glacier National Park snowpack, too. The Olympian reprinted an article from the New York Times which in many places lamented the decline of snowpack due to global warming at Glacier National Park. The article told us the snowpack is shrinking:
“Lately, the snows are not going well. Mountain snowpacks are shrinking. In recent decades, rising winter temperatures have increasingly changed snows to rain. Rising spring temperatures are melting the remaining snow faster.”
But my work shows an INCREASING TREND in spring snowpack in the vicinity of Glacier National Park. These should help to dispel this all too widely held myth. These charts show composited data from all 18 snotel sites near Glacier National Park which have complete data over the 34 years from 1981 to 2014.
April 1 snowpack:http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.glaciernp.april.1981-2014.png
May 1 snowpack:http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.glaciernp.may.1981-2014.png
June 1 snowpack:http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.glaciernp.june.1981-2014.png
Here is what the park road through Glacier NP looked like on June 27, 2011 after the biggest June 1 snowpack in recent memory:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Going-to-the-Sun_Road,_June-27-2011_(5882126346).jpg
These are the 18 snotel sites with elevation in feet shown in the last field:
1,mt,BADGER PASS,307,48.12,-113.02,6900
2,mt,BANFIELD MOUNTAIN,311,48.57,-115.43,5600
3,mt,COPPER BOTTOM,413,47.05,-112.58,5200
4,mt,COPPER CAMP,414,47.07,-112.72,6950
5,mt,EMERY CREEK,469,48.43,-113.93,4350
6,mt,FLATTOP MTN.,482,48.80,-113.85,6300
7,mt,GARVER CREEK,918,48.97,-115.82,4250
8,mt,GRAVE CREEK,500,48.90,-114.75,4300
9,mt,HAND CREEK,510,48.30,-114.83,5035
10,mt,HAWKINS LAKE,516,48.97,-115.95,6450
11,mt,KRAFT CREEK,562,47.42,-113.77,4750
12,mt,MANY GLACIER,613,48.78,-113.67,4900
13,mt,MOUNT LOCKHART,649,47.92,-112.82,6400
14,mt,NOISY BASIN,664,48.15,-113.93,6040
15,mt,PIKE CREEK,693,48.30,-113.32,5930
16,mt,STAHL PEAK,787,48.90,-114.85,6030
17,mt,WALDRON,847,47.92,-112.78,5600
18,mt,WOOD CREEK,876,47.43,-112.80,5960

So even the park officials admit — maybe accidently — that the glaciers were not there during the Holocene Climate Optimum, reached their peak at the end of the Little Ice Age, and have receded since then well before proclaimed human impacts on climate. And warmists wonder why skeptic arguments are far more persuasive?

When you look at the reports on Glacier National Park by the USGS (1966, 1998, 2005 and 2015) what you will find is that for almost all the major Glaciers they track, almost all the decrease in mass took place prior to 1950. Two thirds of Grinnell and Sperry glaciers were lost before the commonly accepted 1950 time period when manmade CO2 emissions were supposed to start impacting the climate. In fact, the reports indicate directly that the highest recession rates of up to 100 meters/yr took place in the 1920-1940 time frame. That would coincide with some of the warmest years in US history.
This idea that the climate is causing these declines avoids discussing the early part of the 20th century because that was the most impactful for this environment. But that goes against the meme doesn’t it?

Glaciers melt mostly because of ash and dirt on surfice, but not due to an air temperature. Sun warms a dirty or darkened glacier much faster than warmer air. Just remember, snow is basically some kind of mirror and is very sensitive for reflection ratio.

“Official Park literature claims that all glaciers in GNP are predicted to melt away by the year 2030. (Some signs even tell visitors that the glaciers may be gone by 2020.)”
These changes in the official story line occur when deadlines pass without the fanciful results they used to scare us.

I wasn’t paying attention to the weather in Montana in recent years but with certainty, this Summer was a very warm one vs average.
The southwest parts of MT saw one of its warmest Summers in history…….maybe a record at 5-6 degrees F above average(per day). The northwest part of MT, where the Grinnell Glacier is located was 2-3 degrees warmer than average.
You can use the product below to see what temperatures have been like in the US for periods going back to Jan 2016.http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/tanal/temp_analyses.php
This was from the heat ridge that set up in the West for much of this past Summer.
Based only on 2017 weather(which was just weather-as it was cool to the east of the ridge into the Midwest/East), it’s hard to imagine that we did not have a near record melt season for this particular year.
The ridge West, trough East pattern that we’ve had for the last several months is one that we see most often during La Nina’s………occurring this Summer well before the Pacific Ocean temperature configuration meets the formal declaration of La Nina.

Some illustrations I have put together
The Rhône glacier during the second half of the 18th century:https://i.imgur.com/fa9yhHJ.png
The Jakobshavn Isbræ in Greenland:https://i.imgur.com/WlHOigo.png
Most melting took place under very low CO2 forcing, but notice the huge melting from 2003 to 2007, a time when temperatures were not increasing.
Several points can be made:
– Glacier melting is a post-LIA feature.
– No clear link to CO2
– No linear immediate response to temperature increases. The response appears delayed.
– The decrease in global glaciers goes against Neoglacial trends and it has proceeded beyond what should be expected based on previous trends for this time in the Holocene.https://i.imgur.com/ro2mcq0.png
Two non mutually exclusive possibilities:
– Temperatures as high or probably higher than during the MWP.
– CO2 has specifically a stronger effect on the cryosphere.
In both cases an effect of GHGs on global warming is the most likely explanation for the excessive glacier retreat. At this time in the Holocene our glaciers shouldn’t be this short. It is however a good thing that they are, because we have a better climate than we were entitled to.

“Most melting took place under very low CO2 forcing”
Except that GHG’s in no way shape or form ‘force’ the climate system. Only incident energy can force the system which means that the Sun is the ONLY forcing influence that acts on the climate system. If there was no solar forcing and the surface was 0K, would introducing GHS’s to the atmosphere make the surface warmer? The idea that CO2 is a forcing influence is a fantasy created to support the preconceptions behind climate alarmism. The actual effect of incremental CO2 is to change the response of the system, not the forcing arriving at system.
On a per Watt basis, natural warming (and cooling) consequential to actual forcing has its largest effect at the poles. The reason is simple and just the consequence of the T^4 relationship between temperature and emissions. At a temperature of -10C (263K), the resulting emissions are 271.27 W/m^2. In the steady state, the surface emissions are equal to the energy arriving at the surface, so if 1 more W/m^2 enters the surface, the resulting steady state emissions increase to 271.27 W/m^2 which arises consequential to a temperature increase of 0.24 C.
If the starting temperature was 40C (313C), the emissions are 544.2 W/m^2. If one more W/m^2 is arriving at the surface, the new steady state emissions become 545.2 W/m^2 consequential to a temperature increase of only 0.14C which is nearly half as much as when 1 W/m^2 is added to a surface at -10C. This corresponds directly to the immutable 1/T^3 dependence of the sensitivity on the temperature.
The temperature dependency of the sensitivity, which is an unambiguous consequence of the SB Law, is not acknowledged by ‘consensus’ climate science (i.e. the IPCC) and is one of many reasons they are so wrong about the sensitivity. The sensitivity per W/m^2 of incident surface energy is nearly twice as large at -10C than it is at 40C and this same ratio occurs for a 1 W/m^2 of solar forcing at TOA since the energy arriving at the surface is linearly proportional to the energy arriving from the Sun (all else being constant). Many estimates of the sensitivity are based on the behavior below 0C and extrapolated to the planet as a whole, which is unambiguously incorrect since the average temperature of the planet is much higher.

Sorry, but this is a rerrible post; extremely short on useful data and science, on a pityful remnant of a glacier (??really, this is a glacier??). Finding one that grows kind of proves the others are not. It only illustrates warming OR lack of snow fall, or the opposite if you want. It takes many many years of data on many many glaciers to say something useful.
This is a poorly documented anecdotal vacation trip, probably used as a tax deduction..

B.Quartero, you didn’t read through the comments which adds a lot to the article and in reply to specious warmist crap that have been posted here.
You also failed to read much of anything because the Spooner group,NEVER made any major science claims at all,they wanted to see for themselves over what is being misleadingly claimed in warmist circles:
The noted:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
They stated they wanted to do their own on site observation at the proper time each year:
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
Your complaint is silly.

His complaint isn’t silly in the slightest.
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. ”
Taking a few pictures on a day hike is not a research project.

Chris, why do you try hard to be stupid?
You complain about what I write with this, “Taking a few pictures on a day hike is not a research project.”
This is what I wrote to Quartero,that you amazingly failed to see,
“You also failed to read much of anything because the Spooner group,NEVER made any major science claims at all,they wanted to see for themselves over what is being misleadingly claimed in warmist circles:”
The Lysander website stated:
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
They said it was a “annual research project” Nothing more. It will never be published in a science journal since it is a simple date based observation and photo shoot,that is all it is.
Never said it was a scientific outing at all, you made a Red Herring attempt. Stop with your B.S!

Why do I try to be stupid? So i can attempt to understand your points. But even then, sadly, it’s impossible. You say this is not a scientific outing at all – even though it is called research and that was the very point of the trip. You’re going around in ridiculous semantic circles to defend a completely lightweight and irrelevant day trip.

Chris gets ever stupider as time goes on,he writes as if the little warmist troll thinks that I have high regards for the tiny group that will never materially add to the science of the region,which I have stated already for this clod.
He writes,
“Why do I try to be stupid? So i can attempt to understand your points. But even then, sadly, it’s impossible. You say this is not a scientific outing at all – even though it is called research and that was the very point of the trip. You’re going around in ridiculous semantic circles to defend a completely lightweight and irrelevant day trip.”
I wrote this that he whines over,
“They said it was a “annual research project” Nothing more. It will never be published in a science journal since it is a simple date based observation and photo shoot,that is all it is.
Never said it was a scientific outing at all, you made a Red Herring attempt. Stop with your B.S!”
you are trolling here since never have I endorsed the trip at any time,stated that it will never add to the science of the region,never said it was a scientific trip either.
THEY claim it is a research project, I said it is not going to add to the science of the region.
You have no ability to separate what they said, to what I said about their trip.
This is my very first comment in reply to you,
” Sunsettommy
September 20, 2017 at 9:08 am Edit
Chris, your comment about Roots background, has done NOTHING to address the main point of the article.
“In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
Drop your dead in the water qualification fallacy angle,since it is worthless!”
my words in that reply,
“That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:”
How old are you anyway,since you write like an idiot.

This post may be a bit weak, but consider the great information to be had when reading the comments. Many posts here at WUWT can be a bit skimpy, but the comments then flesh out much greater detail. It is the comment section that makes WUWT such an outstanding site for reading and learning.

Having been born and raised in Montana, I know for a fact every glacier in GNP is smaller than since I grew up and if you extrapolate over the decades actual scientists have been recording data, his information does not hold light. So…. All you can claim whatever you want to believe but actual data and facts don’t agree with his findings.

Blair, show us HERE, who disputes the melting of the Glaciers at GNP in recent decades.
Meanwhile at the Author made a legitimate complaint,that you seem to have missed:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
The Author wanted to see for himself at the MINIMUM date, to develop a more credible base to see how much change is really there.

Can someone please explain (concisely) how the earth has been in a temperature flux (ice ages to hot ages, back and forth) for millennia without human existence, but now it’s all our fault? I just don’t understand, assuming there is global temperature change, how it can be inextricably linked to human interference.

“… how it can be inextricably linked to human interference.”
It can’t when rigorous science is applied. This is why climate science alarmism relies exclusively on pseudo scientific results conforming to a political narrative, rather than actual science conforming to the scientific method and the laws of physics.

Some things to keep in mind:
1. Glaciers respond to prolonged changes in summer temp and winter snowfall. Changes in these parameters didn’t begin with increased human CO2 emissions (after 1945), they have been going on for thousands of years.
2. You can’t determine anything meaningful by comparing the glacier extent at the end of a prolonged cold period with the extent at the end of a prolonged warm period (like most of the examples used by alarmists).
3. We’ve been emerging from the Little Ice Age for the past several hundred years so we should expect to see overall warming, not limited to post-1945 CO2 emissions. The warming is not linear–it has occurred in a series of oscillating warm and cool periods and glaciers have responded accordingly.
4. Glaciers retreated from 1850 to 1880, expanded from 1880 to 1915, retreated strongly from 1915 to 1945, expanded strongly from 1945 to 1980, and retreated from 1980 to early 2000s. Light global cooling has occurred from about 2000 to the present and glaciers are beginning to respond by expanding (there is a lag effect–it takes awhile for glaciers to respond to temp change).

DR. Easterbrook,
Agree that we need to see the big picture.
Here you show short term cycles from the 1800’s,that help us see why there are periodic retreats tied to a degree,with warming time frames.
Please provide some links for us who wants to delve deeper into this.

Thank you for these level-headed comments. All the name-calling in all directions just muddies the discussion which non-academics and non-scientists like myself (who are the effect of whatever the powers-that-be foist on us in terms of policy) need in order to be informed and think clearly. Yes, even we little people are very interested and are sick and tired of being told what to think. I often see the illogical statements but haven’t got first-hand scientific data to argue. It has never made sense to me that all the fault and burden of global warming should be placed on Man’s use of fossil fuels in the last couple hundred years when there are so many other gargantuan shifts and changes over Earth’s whole history and current routine events in Earth’s environment in the solar system that have nothing to do with our burning of coal and oil. I refuse to engage in the name calling because this whole subject has become such an emotionally charged one with the different factions’ vested interests in their positions. Climate and its changes and impacts happen regardless of political views and should not be dealt with based on cui bono, but on what science can demonstrate and what sane heads of high integrity can help us plan to do for all of our survival. I don’t need you to go listing your sources, as someone asked you to do, as I can do whatever research I wish to corroborate what you say. Again, thank you for your logical and useful comments.

Note: “all the name calling” didn’t start with the skeptics. Nope, they have been attacked for daring to even question the orthodoxy of CAGW. That includes several in the flock that suggested that the UN-IPCC models needed to be verified by at least hind-casting. While I agree that the name calling doesn’t help the debate, yet having been involved for decades in the politics of the environmental movement I can assure you the CAGW crowd will not stop the attacks but only get more strident. I know of no skeptic that has recommended federal prosecution of CAGW adherents for fraudulent statements and actions or as one prominent politico demanded several years ago that that any denier deserved hanging. I would love a good truthful, ethical, honest public debate on the issues but I know well that even though that is what many so called deniers have requested, the devout CAGW believers will never allow it if they can in anyway prevent it. All you have to do is read some of the Climategate exchanges.

Don,
Check the Rainer National Park web cams. Winter arrived yesterday.
A volunteer trail crew (WTA) has been working on the Mount Fremont Lookout Trail, at about 7,000 feet for the past few weekends. Cameras show new snow, forecast says more to come.
We’ll likely be looking for a place closer to 4,500 feet for this weekend. Glacier Basin Trail, maybe.

Pretty sure glaciers aren’t permanent no matter. They melt. They break off. They do all kinds of stuff and then disappear at some point. Global warming cultists seem to want to come at everything that somehow what they believe to be “baseline” is etched in stone fact and that the Earth is supposed to be what they say it’s supposed to be based on some static state they pull out their ass. Any variation from that “proves” they are right.

All I can say is thank God that the glaciers retreated, otherwise I’d be using SKIS to get into Des Moines and the copper roof of 801 Grand would barely show above the ice and snow.
I guess the end of the last little ice age was all my fault…………..
Is there climate change? Yes. Is it ALL man? Unlikely given the past history of this planet and the trends that had already started centuries ago. Can we do better? Yup, I believe we can. There is no consensus – that term is used to squelch the other side of the debate. Further, how do we know how many tons of carbon we put into the air? Do we pay someone with giant scales to go out and measure it? Do we know EXACTLY how many people burn stuff, exactly what mileage all vehicles get, exactly what comes out of the tail pipes (or headers in some cases) of our cars? How can we say “we reduced our carbon output by 25 tons last week” – that’s BS. No one knows, you can’t even guess who is doing what. there’s no way to show that China puts our xx amount and the US xx amount. Prove it – show me the measurements and be accurate.
Of course when the Chinese people have to go around with MASKS or risk getting sick – DUH – don’t need Al Gore to tell us about that, or when we see buildings and vehicles in LA or NYC damaged by the very air they are in, again, DUH. But when it became politicized, you lost a whole lot of people. Go into a room screaming and preaching and you ain’t gonna get many followers other than a few radicals. Go in not as a politician and not with threats or taxes – and you may get some more believers.
That’s my beef – how Al the Bore handled it all. Stop preaching and start showing proof that’s impossible to refute. Hey, I’m listening. I believe there’s change and I believe humans may be having some impact – but the scope and size I don’t believe at this time. In any case, we can do better – just as people who have to live here, we can do better.

I’ve been visiting (and skiing) Alpine glaciers in the Sierra Nevada about twice a month each summer for decades. Two years ago was the minimum I’d ever seen, but to be fair, it rained heavily that summer due to monsoon moisture coming up from Arizona, plus it was after several years of drought and low winter snow fall. Ordinarily, the Sierra’s are a desert for most of the summer and see only occasional thunder storms.
This September, there’s more snow on the ground than I’ve ever seen this late in the summer, including 2011 which was an even bigger snow year. When I went up last weekend, the ski tracks we put down a couple of weeks earlier were still visible which indicates a slower melt than usual, moreover; we we able to ski pitches that haven’t been skiable this late in the season for as long as I’ve been doing this. The apparent cooling trend at upper altitudes (10K feet and above) has been quite noticeable over the last few years.

In the image time-stamped 09/17/2017 1125 the text on the propaganda board asserts all glaciers in the park will be gone by 2030. Coincidence? I think NOT! Can anyone say UN Agenda 2030? The one-world-order movement is as transparent as al gore’s lies.

It makes no difference to the climate change gang as they have staked out all the territory to insure their success. If it gets warmer, it’s climate change, if it gets colder, it’s climate change, if it stays the same, it’s climate change, if we get hit with 12 hurricanes, it’s climate change, if we have no hurricanes for 12 years, it’s climate change.

I just want to clarify for all the people who read this thread and are of the Catastrophic Anthroprogenic Global Warming persuasion.
No one here debates that the glaciers have retreated.
The issue at hand is cause and attribution. There are so many variables, they I roundly mock and hold in great derision anyone who attributes 100% the hand of man, just as I would anyone who attributes 0%. The question is percentage.
Now how do we get a percentage attribution? To create the proper STATISTICAL equation, we would need to know how to do so.
Me, this is what I would do. I would create a histogram with categories based on temperature. I would go back 10,000 years with a temperature reading every 100 years. This gives 100 points of data. Use available data – yes I know some of it is surmising from ice cores but apparently we have created graphs. You get the minimum average and the maximum average. Then the difference. Divide by 10 or whatever number will provide a nice curve.
Then you do a design of experiment. H1 can be that current temperature rise is not normal (i.e., outside sigma). H0 can be that it is normal. Than you prove whether or not H1 is true or false. With statistics. Then provide a confidence level.
It is an oversimplification, but it is effective.

I am too busy to do it. Not in academia. Don’t want to spend time at night that I would have with my family. Would be interested to see what a professional statistician could come up with.
Maybe a different design of experiment.

One problem: There are no glaciers in Glacier National Park. There are some permanent snowfields. Such snowfields in the Rockies have been steadily shrinking as long as observations have been kept, dating well back into the 19th Century. And considering that the Park shows evidence of heavy glaciation in the recent geological past (hence its name) it’s a pretty safe bet the ice and snow has been shrinking for 40,000 years.

Glaciers in Alaska have been receding since the 1600’s. Until the last 8 years. It appears that the Billions of dollars spent on a con making many democrats wealthy beyond avarice haven’t learned anything that might help us survive the coming Ice Age. When the masses find out, they’ll Never give another nickel to research what the truth really is..

After 4 billion years, imagine the coincidence that we live in a time that has the Perfect Earthly temperature..!
Wow are we Lucky..
Is it also a coincidence that Chicken Little isn’t taught to our children anymore?

Subject: CLIMATE CHANGE WARNING
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some
places the seals are finding the water too hot according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate at Bergen Norway Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.
Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the
report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will
rise and make most coast cities uninhabitable.
I must apologize. I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922 , as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post 94 years ago. This must have been caused by the Model T Ford’s emissions or possibly from horse and cattle farts.

Gold,
Lots more, but I limited my links to those from this year and a representative sample of the earth because more would have put me into moderation.
Please see below a recent link on Patagonian glaciers.

crackers345 September 20, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Four articles citing scientific papers from this year from widely separated parts of the world.
Far better than your cherry picked glaciers which ignore the parts of the world with the most ice.
Yet more unintentional humor from you.
Thanks again! The comedy gift that keeps on giving.

You miss my point. Are you trying say that only some ice on land is important? How ridiculous.
If SLR is a threat than the ice volume of Greenland and Antarctica trump any shrinking glacier in Montana.

“And the big decline in alleged ice mass coincides with reduction from 40 to 25 glaciers. This is supposed to be science?”
Coming from the propagandist UNEP, it means 15 glaciers in the 40(!) “worldwide glaciers” sample are heretically growing and have been tossed out of the narative. Science by climate scientologists.

Cracker, from YOUR link,
“Length change measurements have been available since
the late 19th century (Fig. 5.1). These observations show
a general glacier recession from the positions of the LIA
moraines worldwide. The overall retreat of the glacier
termini is commonly measured in kilometres for larger
glaciers, and hundreds of metres for smaller glaciers
(Hoelzle et al. 2003).Within this general trend, strong
glacier retreat was observed in the 1920s and 1940s,
followed by stable or advancing conditions around the
1970s, and again drastic glacier retreats after the mid
1980s. On shorter timescales, deviations from these
global trends are found in many regions. Looking at the
individual data series, one finds a high variability in gla-
cier fluctuations. Large, flat valley glaciers with centen-
nial response times are too long to react dynamically
to decadal mass variations, but exhibit a continuous
retreat from their LIA moraines, while medium-sized
steeper glaciers reacted with re-advances to intermit-
tent wetter and cooler periods. ”
It says the LIA effect was WORLDWIDE. The chart in YOUR link make clear of a worldwide LIA effect.
“Fig. 5.1 Glacier length changes –
Temporal overview on short-term glacier length changes. The number of advancing (blue) and retreating (red) glaciers are plotted as stacked columns in the corresponding survey year. This figure shows 30 420 length change observations with a time range of less than 4 years (between survey and reference year). This corresponds to almost 85 per cent of the reported data which in addition include observations covering a longer time scale and/or stationary conditions. The time period of glacier LIA maximum extents is
given according to the regional information in Chapter 6. Note that the scaling of the number of glaciers on the y-axis changes between the regions. Source: figure based on data analysis by R. Prinz,
University of Innsbruck,Austria; data from WGMS.”
No one here disputes the decline of Mountain glaciers,but you,Ivan and Chris keep on with the misleading,dishonest crap. Stop being stupid!
You are a terrible reader,since I asked for how many glaciers are actually properly monitored out of the THOUSANDS that exist. You never answered it.
You should stop here,since I used YOUR link against you.

Do you DENY the Little Ice Age existed, crackpot ?
Do you DENY that it was the coldest period in 10,000 years?
I don’t deny that there has been some totally beneficial warming out of that coldest of periods.

Cracker, once again you are wrong,
The LIA has been found in various parts of Southern Hemisphere:
The ‘Little Ice Age’ in the Southern Hemisphere in the context of the last 3000 years: Peat-based proxy-climate data from Tierra del Fuego
“Abstract
The so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) of the 15th to 19th centuries ad is well-attested from much of Europe and from some other parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It has been attributed to solar forcing, associated with reduced solar activity, notably during the Spörer, Maunder and Dalton solar minima, although other causes have also been proposed and feature strongly in recent papers. Detection of the LIA in some proxy-climate records from the Southern Hemisphere is less clear, leading to suggestions that the LIA was perhaps not a global phenomenon. Resolving this issue requires more data from the Southern Hemisphere. We present proxy-climate data (plant macrofossils; peat humification) covering the past three millennia from an ombrotrophic mire (peat bog) in Tierra del Fuego, southern South America, but focus our discussion on the period traditionally associated with the LIA. During parts of this time, the mire surface was apparently relatively dry compared with much of its 3000-year record. It was reported earlier that a particularly dry episode in the mire coincided with the 2800 cal. BP ‘solar’ event (since identified as a Grand Solar Minimum), which was attributed to solar-driven changes in atmospheric circulation, and more specifically to a shift in position of the Westerlies. Parts of the LIA record show a similar shift to dryness, and we invoke a similar cause. The shifts to and from dry episodes are abrupt. These new data support the concept of a global LIA, and for at least the intense dry episodes might reinforce the claim for solar forcing of parts of the LIA climate.”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683614551232

Another science paper,
Little Ice Age climate and oceanic conditions of the Ross Sea,
Antarctica from a coastal ice core record
Abstract.
Increasing paleoclimatic evidence suggests that
the Little Ice Age (LIA) was a global climate change event.
Understanding the forcings and associated climate system
feedbacks of the LIA is made difficult by the scarcity of
Southern Hemisphere paleoclimate records. We use a new
glaciochemical record of a coastal ice core from Mt. Erebus
Saddle, Antarctica, to reconstruct atmospheric and oceanic
conditions in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica over the past
five centuries. The LIA is identified in stable isotope (δD)
and lithophile element records, which respectively demon-
strate that the region experienced 1.6 ±1.4◦
C cooler average temperatures prior to 1850 AD than during the last 150 yr
and strong (>57 m s1) prevailing katabatic winds between
1500 and 1800 AD. Al and Ti concentration increases of an
order of magnitude (>120 ppb Al) are linked to enhanced
aeolian transport of complex silicate minerals and represent
the strongest katabatic wind events of the LIA. These events
are associated with three 12–30 yr intervals of cooler tem-
peratures at ca. 1690 AD, 1770 AD and 1840 AD. Further-
more, ice core concentrations of the biogenic sulphur species
MS−suggest that biological productivity in the Ross Sea
polynya was∼80 % higher prior to 1875 AD than at any sub-
sequent time. We propose that cooler Antarctic temperatures
promoted stronger katabatic winds across the Ross Ice Shelf,
resulting in an enlarged Ross Sea polynya during the LIA”https://search.proquest.com/openview/1a8405c6fcd2be03fce0911d513db78c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=105735

Another paper,
Can a little ice age climate signal be detected in the southern alps of New Zealand?
“Abstract
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a late Holocene interval of climate cooling registered in the North Atlantic region by expansion of alpine glaciers and sea ice (Grove, 1988). Here the LIA includes an early phase from about AD 1280 to AD 1390, along with a main phase from about AD 1556 to AD 1860, followed by warming and ice retreat (Holzhauser and Zumbiihl, 1999a). It has recently been demonstrated from records of North Atlantic ice-rafted debris that the LIA is the latest cooling episode in a pervasive 1500-year cycle of the climate system that may lie at the heart of abrupt climate change (Bond et al., 1999). This raises the question of whether the LIA climate signal is globally synchronous (implying atmospheric transfer of the climate signal) or out of phase between the polar hemispheres (implying ocean transfer of the climate signal by a bipolar seesaw of thennohaline circulation) (Broecker, 1998). New Zealand is ideally situated to address this problem as it is located on the opposite side of the planet from the North Atlantic region where the classic LIA signal is registered so clearly. Due to high precipitation and ablative activity gradients, glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand respond to climate change on a decadal timescale (Chinn, 1996). Therefore, moraine sequences deposited during oscillations of these glaciers are ideal for determining the character of the LIA signal in this portion of the Southern Hemisphere. The chronology of the late Holocene moraine sequences fronting Hooker and Mueller Glaciers in the Southern Alps is controversial. Initial dating of these moraines from historical records, as well as from lichenometric and tree-ring analyses (Lawrence and Lawrence, 1965; Burrows, 1973), pointed to deposition in the LIA, indicating a global near-synchronous climate signal. In contrast, a subsequent chronology based on weathering rinds of surface clasts suggested that most of the late Holocene moraines antedate the LIA (Gellatly, 1984), implying lack of a classic LIA climate signal in this portion of the Southern Hemisphere. To resolve this dilemma, a new and detailed chronology of the Hooker and Mueller Holocene moraine systems was constructed in this study by using geomorphologic maps, historical records, and the FALL lichenometry technique. A major result of this study is that most of the Holocene moraines fronting Mueller and Hooker Glaciers were Deposited during the main phase of the LIA as defined in the North Atlantic region. The glacier advances recorded by these moraines are about equivalent in age with those in the North Atlantic region. The magnitude and timing of the ILA climate signal is nearly the same in the two regions. The collapse of Hooker and Mueller Glaciers in the last 140 years is also approximately synchronous with retreat of glaciers in the North Atlantic region. Therefore, the LIA climate signal occurs in the atmosphere as far south as New Zealand, on the other side of the planet from the North Atlantic region.”http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/523/

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Are there not comprehensive catalogs of satellite photographs that would answer this question?
If we don’t have them ask the Russians or the Chinese. You can bet they have plenty of pictures of us.

Have always liked Glacier having grown up not to far from there. I follow the opening date for the Going to the Sun road as when I visit my Mom in the summer I like to drive through if it is opening. Below is a link to a PDF of the historic opening dates of Logan Pass and the Going to the Sun road from the National Park Service. The missing dates from this PDF are 2013-6/21, 2014-7/3, 2105-6/11, 2016-6/16 and 2017-6/28.
Being a numbers geek I converted the dates to day of the year and adjusted for leap years, did not include 1933 when they had a late grand opening and 1943 which opened late due to the war and adjusted 1964 to 6/9 per their footnotes.
I know this is probably meaningless but the overall average opening date is 6/9 (160.5). I averaged out the decades and the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 70’s and 90,s were all plus or minus a day of the total average date. the 60’s were 5 days earlier and the 80’s were 8 days earlier. Conversely the 00’s were 4 days later and the current decade is 14 days later than average.
Total snowfall is not the reason the glaciers are changing. I think Allen who replied to a comment near the top of the comments might be on to something about the Mount St. Helens eruption and the ash. Would also suggest the population in the area and especially to the west has grown a lot since the 30’s and most of those people heat with wood. I have an occasional medical problem that pops up and my doctor explained that it isn’t just one thing that causes it but a combination of several factors that bring it about. I think the changes to the glaciers in Glacier National Park are also being affected by a combination of factors some man caused and some not.
Also Holly is right on the money about most of the rangers not answering questions that go contrary to the official park dogma.https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/news/upload/Logan-Pass-Open-Close-Dates_Press-Kit.pdf

Chris, as usual you make clear that you are an idiot,since I made clear SEVERAL times,that it is an itty bitty project,without any publishable research material to be gathered. My first comment about them,
““In September 2015, Lysander Spooner University launched an annual research project aimed at visiting GNP’s glaciers every year at their lowest points. This year a small group of us opted to hike to the popular Grinnell Glacier and take a few snapshots on September 16. We hiked the 5.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel and arrived at glacier’s edge late in the afternoon.”
That is all they offer,nothing more. They made no science statement at all,just a simple complaint about misleading photos:
“A recurring trick by climate hysterics is to show an old photograph of one of GNP’s glaciers next to a more recent photo of the same glacier showing a massive decrease in size. Often the pictures do not precisely specify what calendar dates the photos were taken on. This is significant because the melting season is quite short and rapid, and an image from August can be starkly different from an image from just weeks earlier.”
Drop your dead in the water qualification fallacy angle,since it is worthless!”
Never made an endorsement for the group at ANY time,never said it was a valuable project or that it would add materially to the science of the region.
You are Steve are whining over it so much.It is funny to see it out in the open.

Stayed at the Many Glacier Inn in late June this year. I too noticed the old /new photo comparison on the wall, but was pleasantly surprised that the ranger lectures and tour conversations that I heard tread very lightly on AGW and drew the distinction between that and natural cyclical warming, acknowledging that the science wasn’t settled. The big outdoor signs like the ones shown in the post obviously were prepared and installed during the Obama administration, but the rangers apparently are following a new, more enlightened script! I could only get two-thirds of the way to the Grinnell glacier as the trail was still snowed in. Did get to Iceberg Lake, but no icebergs because the lake was still frozen over. I can’t think of a better place to see proof of the power of natural forces and change vs. the tiny, temporary effect of man. Biggest impact of man in Glacier National Park is obviously poor forest management.

The Chief Quadrangle most certainly is wilting from man’s work. The post WWII Columbia Basin’s irrigated green fields are upsetting high air flows and dumping more precipitation onto the Palouse Prairie. Flying over the Basin Project is like driving on a washboard gravel road! This is making the Palouse greener, and mellowing our climate out! Nobody needs to live and work at the top of Glacier Nat’l Park.

Okay, I have a stupid question-
How can you accurately track global temperature without sampling temps in every book and cranny of the globe, at the same time? How can one possibly collect and process all that data?
Or is it cherry-picked? I often hear “It was the hottest summer on record for ___; but here in the NY area, we’ve had one of the coolest summers in my 61 years, but that isn’t mentioned anywhere.

Not a stupid question. There are no long term temperature records for 75% of the planet (oceans + uninhabitable regions). The satellite temp data began in the late 70’s. When it didn’t agree with the climate model predictions, it was ignored and then attacked.
Much of the surface temperature data has been adjusted or in-filled. In the Climategate emails, Phil Jones (ex-head of the CRU) admitted that much of the Southern Hemisphere data was simply made up.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, we simply don’t have enough quality data to say that today’s climate is in any way unusual — if anything it would be considered extremely mild compared to other geological eras.

>>> The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, we simply don’t have enough quality data to say that today’s climate is in any way unusual — if anything it would be considered extremely mild compared to other geological eras. <<<
the question isn't "mild" or "harsh," it's
about change.
when did global temperature
last change this fast?

crackup, to answer your question, we not only don’t know, we can’t know.
Most proxies only resolve to century or millenial scales, so movements that last a few decades or so do not show up in them.
Why don’t you try learning a little science. It’s refreshing.

Has the air around Glacier NP actually warmed since the 1980s? I’d venture a guess that the winters have gotten a bit warmer than during the mid-century cooling period, ie 1940s to ’70s, but that the summers haven’t gotten hotter. The milder winters might well have had more snow, however. If summers aren’t hotter and snow has increased (or even if it hasn’t), then how can “global warming” possibly be the cause of whatever retreat might have happened since then?

Also, what about surrounding forest practices? Has there been more logging? Almost certainly.
Recall that ice loss on Gore’s poster child Kilimanjaro was due to forest reduction downslope, not from temperature change around the mountain top.

I don’t doubt that the earth is warming. It has been since the end of the LAST ice age. How, with geologic evidence abounding, that the earth cycles back and forth between being an ice cube and water world, can people say it is human-caused? The best theory I’ve heard to date says that warming increases the volume of fresh water in the ocean until it disrupts the great conveyors of warm water from the lower latitudes (apparently salinity aids in maintaining the Gulf Stream and others) until such time that a tipping point is reached, plunging the earth into the next Ice Age. Then the gradual melt begins anew. I tend to lean on that single thing responsible for 100% of the warmth on this planet: the sun. Fluctuations or cycles result in warming or cooling respectively. Or maybe I’m wrong and man is the culprit (this time). The real truth is that no one knows for sure and that the left is trying to use this as a means to enact capitalist crippling economic policies so as to give statist economics they favor a fighting chance. Politics is religion for the left where approved orthodoxy is taken on faith and postulating contrary ideas is apostasy. They shout down climate change skeptics (even those with PHD’s) with the same zeal and certainty of conviction once employed by the Inquisitors.

cracks. double cracks.
“scientist” is not a title, and the very same man can be at the very same time a scientist (when doing proper science, that is, trying hard to DISPROVE his own theory) and non-scientist. Most renowned “scientist” were actually NON scientist at the very same time, refusing to depart from old theory, refusing to accept they are proven wrong. This is no problem.
“scientists” just do not accept authority argument, they only accept reproducibility. So anyone using “scientists know” (a kind of authority argument) just negates science.
Nobody would never, ever, need to say “Einstein knows that E=mc²” as a proof of his theory . You just don’t have to name him, since known devices works using this formula. This is what makes his theory relevant. He is no prophet to be trusted, he is the source of working devices.
A scientist doesn’t KNOW a thing is causing another. He only have a theory, and he only knows this is just a theory that somehow has not still been proven wrong (as all theory ultimately are). A man that knows what is causing what is not a scientist, he is religious zealot.

I’m Dutch, and I live in the Netherlands. During the summer, that is. I’m lucky to live in Austria during the entire winter.
The north of the Netherlands was under the icecap during the last ice-age. The sea between England and the Netherlands, the Northsea did not exist during that time. You could walk from the Netherlands to England then. Foxes live in England. They did not swim across the sea, they walked to England.
In Austria in live in the Enns valley. At the end of the ice-age a glacier filled this valley upto about 1800 mtrs from sealevel. The valleyfloor is at 700 mtrs. A glacier of 1100 mtrs thick is now completly gone.
There were no cars 10.000 years ago. Nobody burned fossile fuels. And yet the climate warmed and now the icecap and glaciers are gone. Yes, we have the Dachstein glacier around the corner. A glacier on a 2600 mtrs high plateau. Were once the entire valley was fiĺed with ice.
Manmade global warming is a hoax. A total hoax. If you want to now who helped the story of manmade global warming into the world? You would not beleave it. Margareth Thatcher. Yes, the Iron Lady.
Why? Power. Political power. Destroying her eneny, the Labour party. And becomming a nuclear power. Nothing more. Read the paper The History of Global Warming Scare by Richard Courtney. Conttolable data and facts.
Google The History of Global Wrming Scare. Ill post a link in my next comment

Read this. It will open your eyes like it did mine. It’s the story how the fable of manmade global warming came to life.
No other than Margareth Thatcher, the Iron Lady made up manmade global warming?
Why? The destroy her political enemy, Labour, by making the coleminers unemployed and to become a nuclear power.
All verifiable facts and data. Unbeleavable but true.https://www.john-daly.com/history.htm

There is no such thing as optimum
However, if you adapt to an climate of X, and it changes to Y,
then the change may cost you.
Some change + or – may be benign
Some change + or – may be costly
Some change + or – may be dangerous
Some change + or – may be catastrophic
and finally some change may be an existential threat.
Simply because we find is difficult to assign a sure value to the range of benign climate change
doesnt negate the fact that some change could be existentially threatening.
Me: If the sun burns out the temperature change will destroy human kind
you: Ya but whats the optimum?
see your logical fail.
we also know that cooling could cause damage, and no one asks “what’s the optimum”

SO Steven give your estimation of what effect AGW is going to have moving forward is it Catastrophic? Stopping AGW in the way the alarmist are talking about is catastrophic, mostly to the poor and working class.
SO what should we do?
Is there a C in AGW or not?

no optimal temp.
the challenge, for all species,
is adapting to the changes. in the
past, many haven’t been able to
adapt, and now temperature is changing
very fast, and animals have ever less
wilderness to travel through north or
south

Crackers
“no optimal temp.
the challenge, for all species,
is adapting to the changes. in the
past, many haven’t been able to
adapt, and now temperature is changing
very fast, and animals have ever less
wilderness to travel through north or
south”
Evidence for any of this please. The planet is greening, The northern and southern latitudes are warming slightly, the tropics are not warming appreciably, trees are growing at higher elevations, seems to me that the planet is becoming more livable for almost every kind of life including man, farming output up dramatically.
If there is is AGW most of its effects have been Beneficial, maybe it should be called BAGW instead of CAGW since there is zero evidence of the C.
Show me one verifiable case of someone being damaged by increased CO2, I can show you 7 Billion people who are being help.

For 99.99% of the history of this planet, temperatures have been much warmer than they are today.
But of course, if we get even a few tenths of a degree of that missing warmth back, it’s going to end life on this planet.

Bob,
Right, and Crackers is also wrong that the planet is warming rapidly. It’s cooling at the moment. The more than 300-year warming trend from c. AD 1690 in the Maunder Minimum depths of the LIA so far has been hugely beneficial. The 3000-year long term cooling trend from the peak of the Minoan WP is however worrisome, extrapolated out to the next glacial advance in a further 3000 years or so.

If, according to the third photo, the glaciers formed 7000 years ago and are again reverting back to the state of no glaciers, how can this be anything other than natural, even IF we are assisting the process?

earlier this year some folks studied the field notes of arctic explorers around 1900 with current snow lines etc. Their findings? The ice fields and snow lines were about where they were 120 years ago.

And of course it won’t matter to the Global Warming alarmists… see, when the glaciers shrink, that’s irrefutable proof that the Earth is warming. But when they grow back, as they have for thousands of years, well, that proves nothing! No change in their position.
Uh huh.
Now fund my climate studies or else you’re a RACIST!!!!!!!!!!

Alberto Gorez, the noted S. American Global Cooling Climatologist (and actual Thermodynamics Expert!)has been warning the world of the current Global Cooling trend for the last 20 years. He also predicted another Maunder Minimum and Little Ice Age.

I am a Red Bus driver (Jammer) in Glacier National Park. This article was sent to me by another Jammer. We have been instructed to present the “demise” of the glaciers as an almost absolute certainty and that it is caused by “human activities” (NPS Climate Change brochure). My tour presents a balanced argument for and against human beings’ controlling the environment. I refuse to present it as a given, especially when the scientific method has not been used. If it had been then the theory could be proved or disproved through experimentation and data collection. That hasn’t happened here. The “experts” twist everything as proof of human responsibility. There is no way to disproved the theory as presented!

Alternatively look at palaeo data which show no relationship between historic CO2 levels and temperature or even glaciation.
The past is another country.
This warmist argument about the “second earth” is bogus, and is based on their denia1 of palaeo data like 6-day creationists.
Hint: the earth was not created in 1850.

Of the 130 glaciers that “they” are monitoring, How many are the big tidewater glaciers?
Hubbard glacier, the largest NH tidewater glacier outside of Greenland….Advancing
Taku Glacier… the largest glacier of the Juneau ice field. A tidewater glacier which is advancing/growing – the largest glacier in the Juneau Ice field.
Same thing with the largest tidewater glacier in the SH outside of Antarctica… is advancing:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCggen_Glacier
Are these glaciers of the 130 being monitored? Probably not …

Lysander Spooner University does not exist. It is fake. It is simply a web site created by two right wing loonies that offers no courses, and has two staff members.
So some guy makes a phony web page, calls himself a professor of a university when he is not a professor, and the university he identifies does not exist.
He then compares a smart phone photograph with the outline of a glacier shown on a park garbage can and procliams that to him, the picture shows more ice, so the glacier must be advancing.
LOL. You can’t get any more dishonest and Mentally ill than that.

True enough. But documenting that the front edge of the glacier had ADVANCED rather than retreated in recent years CAN be done remotely and would be an interesting observation to raise. And I’d conjecture an increased length would likely be a fairly good proxy for increased mass over a short time span (that’s just a guess though).

Some commentators here (you know who you are) have been deriding Dr Roger Roots, the author of this article, and dismissing his university as a scam. One person may even have been laughing at him.
That is unfair. The Lysander Spooner University website looks like the genuine article. In 2017 the university is offering courses in important subjects such as The Evils of Social Security and the Evils of the Minimum Wage, both highly relevant to people trapped in the socialist hell-hole that is the modern welfare state.
Admittedly, the offering of 10 courses is a little thin, and some seem to be of fairly short duration – one day or less. But the course on government regulations features a 50-question exam, quite demanding for today’s attention-deficit youth. The glacier trip is a solid three days, with bonus photos. And the Stone Masonry course is pitch-perfect for the ex-cons who can get a discount for time served.
All worthwhile endeavours begin small and build from there. Amazon began in a garage and look at it now.
There’s one aspect of the glacier expedition that concerns me, though. While the glaciers are arguably shrinking, at least one of the participants is not. No more Oreos for that man. Let’s hope Dr Roots’ first aid skills match his astute observational powers.

The same speculative propaganda placards are in the parking lot of the science center at RMNP. A better place for would such advocacy question mark science would be in the out house or on the power poles with the anti Exxon stickers.

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